Fournier [AP political editor] has discovered that Dan Gillmor was right back in 2000: "My readers know more than I do." Gillmor, who reported on Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, was the first mainstream newspaper journalist to have a blog. Compare what Fournier said in '07 to what Gillmor told J.D. Lasica in 2001. "I frequently hear from readers after a column, saying, 'That was interesting, but have you thought about this or that angle?,' and often the answer is no, I hadn't, so the next time I return to the subject the missing piece makes its way into the article."

Essentially the same quote. So it took five or six years, but the rest of the press is catching up to Gillmor's insight, which arose from his experience with the two-way nature of blogging. "I doubt there is a beat at any newspaper or publication or program where it is not the case that the readers collectively know more than the reporter," he told Lasica.

"My readers know more than I do" had always been true, but it took the Internet for that knowledge to be forwarded into journalism. Now it's manifest in the professional lives of political reporters, and this accounts for some of the change.